The infrequent but often disjointed, garbled ramblings of…me.

Category Archives: Film and TV

You may once again be forgiven for thinking that I might have finally succumbed to the enticing pull of the hereafter. But I haven’t. I just haven’t written anything. Which is different.

After writing about too much Star Wars, I ran out of things to write about. Infinity War? Iron Man and Captain America will die. And Loki. Cyberpunk 2077? We’ll see it at E3. And…done.

If you’re in need of any more Hero’s guides, let me know. God forbid you find yourself out in the deep blue sea, surrounded by super-intelligent sharks that can swim backwards and you haven’t read a guide on how to handle the situation.

In terms of proper writing, I have just crossed the 85,000-word mark of my fifth novel today. Which will, when released be my sixth. And it will be book five of the NEXUS series. Yes.

If you read my books and can count, you may wonder what happened to book four (which should be my fifth novel but will actually be my sixth, except in terms of release, in which case it will indeed be my fifth. Just to clarify). I haven’t written it. My books do have slightly different tones, and some are too different to write from the same mindset. These two, to, have two too different tones. It’s true. So I’ve been unable to get myself in the right mood to write book four, but book five has been going fine. It is, if you are curious, taking a pinch of the noir from my thriller, Acts of Violence, and adding it into the mix. Not so much as to bring it out of the NEXUS series, but enough that I can’t write it and a lighter, more space opera-ish one at the same time (which is entirely in the style of Blades).

Aside from this I have been doing entirely pointless things like painting garden statues. I walked into Homebase just after Christmas and came face to face with a load of Star Wars characters. Naturally, I thought: I should paint those. So I did. Well, I (badly) painted Yoda and R2 and then lost the urge.

Then I decided to sculpt stuff out of polymer clay, which is the natural progression of painting polystone garden statues. I made Superman. Kind of. I am now working on a full figure of the main character of my current book. So if it looks wrong…well, it’s you who’s wrong. It’s going okay, except that I have no idea what I’m doing.

I also have a three-legged cat now. His name is Hop.

No doubt Thanos will demand that I return to say I told you so when dust is bitten, but hopefully I’ll think of something to say before then. So…bye. Bye then.

I’ve written my non-spoiler review, my spoiler review, and now I’ll cover the things I didn’t mention in some questions left over from the hole-filled The Last Jedi. These are all SPOILERS!

Who are Rey’s parents?

People are saying that they think Kylo might be lying about Rey’s parents being nobodies. First, I hope not. Second, I don’t think so. For one thing, I’m nearly certain she’s the one who actually says it. She already knows, and Kylo just wants her to be the one to say it. He tells her ‘Say it’, and she says ‘They were nobody’. He then elaborates a little. But isn’t the point that he took that information from her own mind?

Where are the Knights of Ren?

When Kylo Ren burned down Luke’s academy, he took some other students with him. We’re led to assume that these became the Knights of Ren. Whether this is correct or not, we know that Kylo is the master of the Knights of Ren, so where the hell are they? Are they the Praetorian guards? Are they all dead or otherwise gone? Are they just not in TLJ? Hopefully, we’ll see them in Episode 9. I’d like to see Rey take them all on, her success – or perhaps near-success – maybe even scaring Kylo a little.

Why does a certain someone lie to Luke?

Trying to keep spoilers out of the bolded sub-headings… Yoda lets Luke believe that he burned all the Jedi texts, knowing – I presume – that Rey had already taken them. Why? Just because he’s a tricksy little thing? Was it somehow in Luke’s best interests? Was it to help startle Luke back to Jedi-dom? He does, after all, change his mind at the last moment, and then is horrified when Yoda magics a lighting strike out of the sky to do it instead.

Where did hyperspace tracking come from?

Well, this one I actually have the answer to. It wasn’t just conveniently pulled out of thin air for TLJ. In Rogue One, Jyn reads out the different technologies in the Empire’s database, data store thing. Hyperspace tracking is one of them.

What were the deleted scenes?

We know there were scenes deleted – such as a whole training sequence with Luke and Rey. Would these have added more substance to the film? One of the shots we saw in promos was of Rey charging, apparently into battle, with her lightsaber ignited. Was she originally supposed to be heading to help Luke fight Kylo? Was she therefore originally meant to fight Kylo? Was Luke meant to be there in person and die? Am I reading into it too much?

What kind of lightsaber will Rey build?

The colour is an interesting question – blue, green, purple? Green might mirror Luke, while purple would be a nod to Jaina Solo. But what type of lightsaber will she build now that Luke’s is destroyed? The most obvious choice might be a staff/pike or double-bladed one, since she originally fights with a staff. I’d rather not see that. Perhaps just a normal one, or even a rebuild of the destroyed lightsaber, which will crackle and fizz like Kylo’s. Or, since she now has two pieces of the lightsaber, perhaps she’ll even build and wield two? That might be a stretch.

How is the story going to be finished in just one film?

One thing that struck me was that, to me, The Last Jedi felt more like an opening chapter than a middle one (or a closing one as people are saying). It doesn’t feel as though one more film is going to be enough time to expand on and satisfactorily resolve everything that arose from TLJ. We’ll see.

Will we ever know who or what Snoke is?

And will we care? If he stays dead, I certainly won’t – it’ll be too late. They’ll have thought they could get away with not bothering fleshing him out because they were just going to off him. That’s lazy and bad writing. But if he does somehow come back – which wouldn’t be too surprising, since he’s supposed to be so ancient that it’s a bit odd that he just dies so easily – then we’ll still need to know more about him. But I don’t think he will. There’ll be a book that covers it, stupidly.

I’m sure there are plenty of questions that I’ve forgotten I have, and I might even update this after I’ve seen it again.

What were your biggest questions either not answered by TLJ or raised by it?

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SPOILERS!

If you want to know what I thought of TLJ without spoilers – and who wouldn’t? – read this. Even if you don’t think you care about spoilers, some of the things that happen in the film are better off seen without prior knowledge.

I have still only seen the film once, so some things aren’t as strong in my memory as they could be and I may have forgotten things entirely. That said, the more time passes, the more small and big issues I think of. So, as usual, this isn’t really a review – because I don’t know how to do those – it’s just a mess of thoughts thrown at the screen.

Humour

The humour is made apparent from the very first scene. The conversation between Poe and Hux is simultaneously very funny and concerning. Poe’s side of this conversation is fine – it makes sense to his character and helps us to continue liking him right away, just like the ‘Who talks first’ bit in TFA. Hux’s side, however, is too slapstick stupid. You can imagine he’ll next throw his hat on the ground and jump up and down on it while shaking his fist at Poe’s retreating X-Wing. It doesn’t fit the character – set up to be genocidal and almost Hitler-like – the dangerous and soon-to-be tragic situation, or Star Wars as a whole.

This humour continues to go too far. Chewbacca about to bite into the roasted porg when he spots a group of porgs watching him, their little faces horrified. Very funny. The close-up of the last porg with its lip quivering, stupid. Funny again, but something that should be in Shrek, not Star Wars. And what was that with Snoke redirecting Rey’s lightsaber (yes, I consider it hers now, not Luke’s) and hitting her in the back of the head with it? Was that meant to be funny? It didn’t hit her hard enough for it to be serious, surely? If it is meant to be funny, it’s totally out of place and wrecks the tension and drama of the scene.

It’s like the filmmakers watched Guardians of the Galaxy and thought ‘we should do that’. No, you shouldn’t. That’s not to say there weren’t times when the humour worked. The caretakers and their dislike of Rey worked well. And…other stuff…probably.

Luke Skywalker and Rey

These two worked well together, but when you look past the humour of Luke throwing the lightsaber away, the caretakers, the porgs, etc., the scenes on the island were actually fairly pointless. Luke didn’t teach her a damn thing. He just felt sorry for himself the whole time and then she left. He didn’t teach her to use the Force, he didn’t teach her to use the lightsaber (it’s fine that she could already use it well enough to surprise-defeat a wounded and distracted Kylo Ren in TFA, but now she needs to know how to wield it properly, like a Jedi – luckily she…just does), he didn’t teach her any Jedi principles.

Just as she randomly knows to use a Jedi mind trick on James Bond in TFA and how to pull the lightsaber to her, in TLJ she uses the Force without any training. All Luke teaches her is to reach out with her feelings, and then suddenly she can lift a dozen giant boulders with no problem. Even Luke struggled to lift the X-Wing in the swamp, and he had the most powerful Jedi Grand Master teaching him. I was looking forward to Rey lifting his X-Wing out of the ocean, too.

This part of the film needed so much more time. As I predicted, the film starts with Luke being the last Jedi, and ends with Rey being the last Jedi. The problem is, she in no way earned that title. How can she be a Jedi when Luke didn’t teach her to be a Jedi. She’s just a Force-wielder. There is apparently a whole training sequence cut from the film, but given that his first two ‘lessons’ didn’t really teach her all that much, who knows how much good the third would have been?

As for Luke’s final redemption, in a sense, it felt very much as though the only reason he was projecting himself there rather than being there in person was to surprise the audience. Okay, his X-Wing might be wrecked now after being underwater for so long, so maybe he doesn’t have a way off the island, but really it felt like it was just there to be unexpected. When they opened fire on him and he survived, I thought we were witnessing the power that a true Master can wield – despite the fact that technically, he never moved beyond being a Padawan and has been cut off from the Force for a long time. When Kylo’s foot scrapes the ground and reveals the red sand but Luke’s doesn’t, I thought it was just a nice visual thing because Kylo is a damaging, heavy-handed dark sider, while Luke is a harmonious blah blah blah…it wasn’t that at all.

The other problem is why the hell did he just randomly die afterwards? Kylo says that Rey can’t be linking the two of them because the effort would kill her, so I assume that is foreshadowing and letting us know in advance that the effort of projecting himself like that is not something that even Luke Skywalker can survive, but it just felt out of nowhere. I genuinely didn’t expect him to suddenly disappear like that. I thought that was his part done for TLJ and he’d go out with Leia in the next film.

Leia

Leia’s role in this was fairly small, as she spends half the film in a coma. She’s too accepting of everything. She no longer seems bothered by Han’s death, she gives up on their allies answering their call for help too easily, she admits that her son is gone too casually, and appears to have no problem with Luke dying. Perhaps we’re meant to think it’s because of all of the trauma she’s gone through since the originals, starting with Alderaan, and with each death – many of them the deaths of the people under her command – she has grown more emotionless, but it doesn’t come across well.

Then she dies. Except she doesn’t! In a throwaway scene that’s never mentioned again, she uses the Force to survive the explosion, the decompression, and the exposure, and Mary Poppinses her way back onto the ship. It’s quite good, and is more Force use than I expected to see from her (I expected some, but more in line with sensing Luke and Kylo than this), but it needed something more. No one even mentions it. All it needed was for someone watching to say ‘Well, I guess she IS the sister of a Jedi Master…’ and that would have been enough. I honestly think some newcomers and people who aren’t that into Star Wars won’t even understand what happened. This would, of course have led to the question of why didn’t she train as a Jedi, but all that would have taken was for her to respond with ‘Because my father was Darth Vader’, and everyone would have understood.

Finn, Rose, and Poe

This was a mess. Poe’s part in the film was perhaps the strongest of the three, but they really felt as though they were only there because they had to be. The film desperately wanted to be about Rey, Luke, and Kylo, but knew that these other characters had been introduced in the last film, and still had to be utilised somehow. The result is a completely pointless storyline where Finn and Rose go to a casino to find a hacker that will board the First Order flagship and stop them being able to track the Resistance through hyperspace.

And it is literally pointless. They find a hacker, go back, don’t manage to do the hacking, and the Resistance is nearly wiped out. Almost exactly what would have happened if they had never left. The only difference is that Benicio del Toro betrays them and tells the First Order how to detect all the little ships taking the Resistance down to the planet. This is not something that was worth all of that screen time. So much of that time could have been given to Luke and Rey so that there could have been some actual training going on.

The Rose/Finn romance is completely out of the blue and stupid. And now Rey is going to be jealous of her. Which I hate, because I’m sick of the idea that a male character and female character must automatically have some kind of romantic interest in each other. Why can’t Rey and Finn just be damn good friends, like Luke and Han? Oh, because their genders aren’t compatible in that way? Okay, sure.

Poe meanwhile has a hostile relationship with an admiral who takes Leia’s place. I think we’re meant to suspect that she’s working for the First Order, because they make a big deal out of Snoke laughing approvingly of how Hux is able to keep up with them as they try to flee, when it’s actually nothing special at all. They can just…track them. That’s all. So she refuses to tell Poe her plans, he mutinies, finds that she was actually in the right, then she dies heroically.

First, all of that could have been easily avoided by her not being a moron and actually letting Poe in on the plan – it’s only because that would have been inconvenient to the ‘story’ that she didn’t. Second, they killed of Admiral Ackbar in the blink of an eye – I didn’t even realise he had been one of the ones killed until it was mentioned – instead of giving him the heroic ending, which would have been more fitting. Third, that scene was one of the best in the film. It was visually stunning. The use of silence for it was perfect. I wouldn’t argue with anyone using the word ‘spectacular’.

Snoke

Snoke is dead. This did not come as a shock to me at all. I think it was meant to be the biggest twist in the film, but really it was the only thing they could have done to keep it feeling fresh and not just working off the original trilogy template. I don’t have a problem with it; however, I do have a problem with the fact that Snoke seems to have been built up only so that we’d be surprised when he’s killed.

We don’t know anything about him. Background doesn’t really matter for someone like Rey or Poe or Rose, because what they are currently doing is more important, but we’re talking about a powerful dark side Force-user who seems to have been unknown by both the Jedi and Sidious. If he was a Jedi back then, why didn’t he get wiped out by Order 66? Is that why he has the facial damage? It’s unlikely, because he’s supposedly ancient (which only makes it more absurd that he’s now just suddenly dead). If he was a Sith or other dark sider all along, why didn’t Sidious know about him? Why didn’t he try to kill him – there should be only two, after all. Where the hell has he been hiding all this time. WHAT is he? We’ve been told before that he’s not Sith.

He’s dead now and we’ll either never know, or only know now that it doesn’t matter. I suspect a book will appear that will explain it, which is not okay at all. Don’t leave giant plot holes and missing information and the like because you know a completely different medium will take care of it. Most of us aren’t going to bother with any tie-in novels.

Rey and Kylo

Again, it felt like the film desperately wanted to concentrate on this stuff and ignore the Resistance. Rey and Kylo are done well individually and together. I was very pleased that Kylo stays bad and Rey stays good. Those were two of my biggest concerns going in. I also like that there was something there for those who wanted to see Kylo redemption. He wasn’t evil; he just wasn’t light side. He helps Rey arguably more than Luke does. You could say that it was manipulation to get her to come to him and Snoke so that he could kill Snoke, but I don’t think it was wholly that. It seemed a little more genuine – especially since Kylo invited her to rule with him.

I don’t think it would have suited either character to change sides, but it worked to have them connect with each other and actually begin to care a little about each other. There was no ‘Reylo’ rubbish, which also pleased me. They had a connection, and everything worked on that, but it wasn’t – or at least didn’t seem to be – a romantic thing. Which it shouldn’t have been. She hates him for murdering her surrogate father, Han, but is good enough to look past that and know that there is still some good in him, and try to bring him back to the light.

Drama

There isn’t much. The most obvious omission is any kind of dark side temptation for Rey. She senses the dark side, and Luke says that both sides are strong on the island. Then when she goes looking at the dark side pit, he claims that she went straight for it and so he won’t teach her. Well, that means nothing. She doesn’t understand about the light side and dark side – there’s no reason she wouldn’t go and have a look. No reason she would know to resist. It doesn’t mean her eyes will instantly turn yellow and her lightsaber will magically turn red.

When she physically goes into the pit, there’s nothing. Some mirror thing that seems utterly pointless. There’s nothing she has to face like Luke had to face Luke Vader in the cave. Nothing meaningful down there to teach her about the Force or herself.

The only drama, I think, comes from Luke vs Kylo. Except eagle-eyed fans, we didn’t know what was going to happen there. Luke couldn’t have won, but it didn’t feel like the time to kill him either. Those eagle-eyed fans would have spotted that he was holding the lightsaber that had just been destroyed, he looked younger because of more than just a hair cut and beard trim, his feet didn’t disturb the ground, and he’d already said to Rey something along the lines of “What do you expect me to do, walk out with a laser sword and face down the First Order?”. Everything else just tried to shock and surprise, and mostly failed.

Luke almost killing Kylo is a point of contention, I think. A lot of people don’t like that. But to me, it was a knee-jerk reaction to suddenly sensing Snoke’s dark side influence. Almost like he would have grabbed and ignited his lightsaber if he’d spotted Snoke peering in the window. I don’t think it makes Luke bad.

The Force

The Force in TLJ is almost a character in its own right. But only the light side. If it is strong enough to just turn Rey into a Jedi without any input from…an actual Jedi, lightning-strike a tree and destroy it, and so on, shouldn’t the dark side have been stronger too? I like that Rey isn’t at all tempted by the dark, as for me, that suits her character. However, if there’s not going to be that kind of temptation, couldn’t the dark side have whispered to her, tried harder to lure her or trick her down in the pit? Something?

And there’s Yoda. He was good. He was a puppet. That was nice.

And this has kind of fizzled out now. It’s too long, so the remaining stuff (before I watch it a second time and come up with more), I will put in a ‘questions I have‘ post.

Overall, I feel like The Last Jedi has far more problems than The Force Awakens did, yet I think I like it more. Rey remains my favourite Star Wars character. What did you think of it? What were your favourite bits, worst bits, biggest questions…?

Like this:

I’m quite fond of Star Wars. I’ve watched the original trilogy perhaps literally more times than I can count, and I can count well into two digits. I even liked the prequel trilogy when I first saw them all – though subsequent viewings made me realise how foolish I was. The Force Awakens was a return to the kind of Star Wars that I love, but does The Last Jedi keep it up?

Yes.

But wait, there’s more! Without spoilers. Unless you consider ‘You’ll love the twist in The Sixth Sense!’ a spoiler because now you know there’s a twist. I will do a spoilery review thing later.

TLJ worried me for multiple reasons. Mark Hamill is, just possibly, not the BEST actor in the galaxy, and I was concerned about him having such a big role. Rian Johnson is known for doing things with his films that might not do well in Star Wars, and was reported to be doing things that have never been done in Star Wars, and stuff like that. Early reactions stated that this would be a polarizing film; that the saga had been going one way all this time, and now it would take a sharp turn.

I needn’t have worried about any of these things. I don’t honestly know what those people were talking about – I don’t think anything was particularly polarizing or direction-shifting. Neither was I particularly surprised by anything that happens, whether I’d already had a theory about it nor not. But not in a bad way – I didn’t leave disappointed that there was no ‘I am your father’ moments. It didn’t lack fresh takes on things and decisions that will surprise some, though.

Story-wise, I was concerned about what choices would be made with some of the characters. What worried me most was that their endeavors to make a fresh, unpredictable story would take characters down paths I didn’t want to see them go down. I can’t say what I was concerned about, because then saying that I needn’t have worried would perhaps be a spoiler.

All-in-all, there were a handful of small things I didn’t like much, and one big thing I didn’t like. But overall, it was an improvement over Force Awakens, it was very funny – perhaps too often – and I want to see it again. Now.

Before I get to a spoiler-filled post, here are some other Star Wars things I’ve babbled about:

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Dawn of Justice was terrible. Snyder made Superman into a dull, whining emo and Batman into a dim-witted, drunken, murdering psychopath who happens to dress like a bat. It goes without saying, then, that even after a mostly very good solo outing for Wonder Woman, I had no hope at all for Justice League.

Imagine my surprise, then, when after weeks of trying and failing to get in to see it, I found myself entirely alone in the cinema, enjoying most of what I was seeing. That’s right, I went to see Thor. I jest. I didn’t see Thor. Perhaps ‘enjoying’ is too strong a term. Easily tolerating.

Given how long it has been out now, I won’t try to avoid spoilers here but, honestly, there’s pretty much nothing TO spoil.

First off, the postivity of my opinion will obviously be swayed by how awful BvS was and the fact that it’s difficult not to compare Justice League with that. Were this the first team up film they had made, I would on the one hand be less forgiving, but on the other be a little more hopeful for the future of the DCMU (which is what I’m calling it). It had plenty of problems, but they seemed smaller than those in BvS, and there were actually enjoyable parts. On a scale of 1 (BvS) to 10 (WW – not that I’d quite give WW a 10/10), I would call Justice League a 6. In a proper rating out of 10, standing on its own merit, I’m not too sure what I could give it. Definitely less than that. 4?

Let’s start with my three biggest problems:

The CGI – WB needs to get its &%$! together when it comes to many things, but perhaps the most obvious to even the most casual of moviegoers is the CGI. It is sensationally bad. JL contains the worst yet. From a terrible, 100% CGI villain to completely unnecessary 100% CGI Alfred, to green-screening that looks like an unfinished fan film, WB would be hard pressed to make the CGI any worse. Cyborg’s face doesn’t need to be CGI – just have him wear a half mask and do it up with little bits of CGI. Although, they couldn’t get Superman’s upper lip to look realistic, so perhaps all is lost in this department.

The length – Perhaps ‘learning’ from people complaining about the length of BvS, Justice League is only two hours long. That would be okay for a solo film, but this is a team-up of six major characters. Although it did, to be fair, seem to give the characters equal-ish screen time, it could have done with at least an extra 30 minutes. As it is, it feels as though Whedon or Snyder or someone forgot that a film should have a middle, and instead went straight from the beginning into a run up to the end. One moment, we’re seeing some of the characters doing their own thing, and the next it’s all go. It’s like Usain Bolt turning up for the Olympics opening ceremony only to hear the starting gun and everyone’s off running and he’s not even in his goddamn shorts!

The Foundation – The film itself can’t help that it has to work off BvS, but…it does. Snyder stupidly rushed into the death of Superman storyline when the world doesn’t trust him, Batman just tried to murder him, and Diana has barely even met him. Even we, the audience, don’t have a good grasp of him as a character (this particular iteration, that is). Yet we’re supposed to believe that the entire world is in mourning because of his death, and so is each of the soon-to-be League. There are shots of places around the world flying gigantic flags with the Superman logo on them. Simply moronic.

Since I’m not sure how else to continue this whatever-this-is, let’s talk about the heroes:

Batman

Batman was a huge disappointment in BvS. He was stupid and oblivious (he lets himself get caught in Luthor’s servers twice, and clumsy, plodding Clark Kent manages to follow him there a third time without him even noticing. World’s greatest dewhat?). There was an allusion to him being an alcoholic womaniser, rather than this being simply a disguise and misdirection. He’s a murdering psychopath. He stands smirking as his traps hurt Superman instead of actually acting. He sees Doomsday about to laser-face him and cowers behind his hands instead of using his multitude of tools and skills to save himself (I maintain that the scene should have happened as is, except without him swearing and hiding, and when Diana turns around to see if he’s okay, he’s standing on the roof above, having escaped in time anyway – she’s still the hero who jumped in front of face laser to save him, and he’s still Batman).

But…I’m getting off track. In Justice League, we’re not too sure if he’s still a murderer because no one ever mentions it and he only fights parademons, which don’t count. He’s still not the Batman I want to see, but he’s a little closer to it. Despite being an older Batman, he shows no signs of the take-charge, always ten steps ahead, ready for anything, surprised by nothing Batman I want to see. For reference, Kevin Conroy is the definitive Batman for me – a live action version of the Batman of the Arkham games would be the Marvel-buster (basically a more brutal, adult version of the animated series Batman). But he doesn’t seem quite as stupid this time, at least. The worst part for me was when Superman first shows up to fight Steppenwolf and Batman literally gasps, with a huge grin on his face. I mean…no.

Batman’s first scene is by far the best and (along with a certain two-sworded villain’s appearance in the post-credits) actually gave me a little hope for his solo film (NOTE: Before editing this, I read that he may now not be playing Batman again after all, which is disappointing – the problem is the Batman he’s been given, not how Affleck plays him). There’s nothing particularly special about it, but it just felt…nice. It felt Batman-ish. A common burglar is climbing out of a window with his loot, and in the window’s reflection, you see Batman watching. Then comes a fairly typical cat and mouse sequence where the thief tries to shoot him but Batman’s never quite there. Again, nothing special, but the most Batman-ish we’ve seen this Batman (and credit to the city around them – it felt like Gotham).

Wonder Woman

There’s not too much to say about Wonder Woman. Her role is fairly minimal outside of hitting and slicing things. Otherwise, she’s really only there to protest bringing Superman back and to explain, unconvincingly, why she went off people in between WW and BvS. But what she did do, she did well.

It looked from the trailers like the team was a bit of a mess right up until Diana takes charge and gets them working as a team. This is not the case. Neither do they work badly together to start with, nor do they work particularly well together in the final fight. Perhaps WB’s collective brain will start working and we’ll see a Patty Jenkins Justice League next. I don’t know how she’d handle Batman, but WW, Superman, and Flash would all do well under her.

I was disappointed to see that not once did she fly. I still don’t know for sure if this version of Wonder Woman CAN fly. She certainly seemed to in her solo film, but it wasn’t clear enough. I’ve said before that, to me, she is almost Superman’s equal. He has more raw strength and power, but she is a demigod (or maybe full god in this version?) and is magic-based, and a trained warrior. These things together – again, to me – make her pretty much his equal in terms of who can beat who (up until Superman totally unleashes, that is; which he didn’t). I was worried, then, when I saw in a leaked video of Superman’s fight with them, that they headbutt each other. She barely knocks his head back, but then he headbutts her back and she gets planted in the concrete. The full scene is slightly better, as he actually headbutts her first, and does as little damage as her return headbutt. This at least shows that the most powerful man in the universe has to make some real effort to hurt her (but look out further down for how that’s completely ruined later on).

Superman

We all knew he was going to come back in this film, but it was as though all the characters knew he was going to come back in this film too. There was no light bulb moment when they realise they can bring him back; there was no clever or interesting way they went about it; there was no emotional realisation that it might actually be possible; there was no real drama to him suddenly being alive again. Aquaman and Diana put forward their ideas that it might be a bad idea – that they don’t know that he’d come back wholly himself – but otherwise, there’s not really any discussion about it.

Then there’s the fact that he’s only in three crucial scenes. His fight with the others, his talk with Lois, and then the end fight when he turns up to save the day, single-handed. Again, this is where a longer film would have come in handy. Perhaps the worst thing about this is that when he does turn up to fight Steppenwolf (cue Batman’s schoolgirl gasp), he bats him about like a cat playing with a dead mouse. This is badly handled. Not only because the other superpowered heroes do him almost no damage (remember how Superman had to really try in order to hurt WW?), but also because of the introductory flashback scene of the first time he comes to Earth, and is fought by Amazons, Atlantians, ‘the tribes of man’, and…wait for it…gods. Yes, the actual gods fight him, and he’s still only just sent packing. But Superman turns up and that’s that. He doesn’t even get a hair out of place while ‘fighting’ Steppenwolf. This, to me, is a little too much. Steppenwolf should at least have got in a couple of good hits. It should have been Superman’s power that allowed them TOGETHER to overwhelm Steppenwolf. Sure, he should be capable of defeating him single-handed, but it shouldn’t be that easy, or else what is the point of the Justice League? Not to mention, if Steppenwolf had hurt Superman a bit, we’d have been wondering just how much more damage Darkseid will be able to do (and I really just can’t get over how weak it makes Diana seem).

And he was just creepy and weird, like a Henry Cavill doppleganger was brought in to play him. He was so inhuman and unemotional all the way through – even when fighting Steppenwolf – as though he resented having to be there – character and actor.

Also, where did he get his new suit?

Flash

Apparently, Flash was most people’s favourite character. I don’t really understand why. His scenes with his father were a bit weak – there was no chemistry there at all. A lot of his humour was way over the top, forced, unfunny, and just childish. He runs weirdly. There’s a scene near the end where he’s running along a road, and I literally thought he was falling or something because of the way his arms were flailing about. But no, that’s just how he runs.

He is perhaps the most pointless character, as at least the others have reason to be there. Flash is just there because he’s part of the Justice League, so he HAS to be. Sure, he saves some people, but there’s no part where he earns his place in the team or the film.

Aquaman

I expected to dislike Aquaman. I don’t dislike Jason Mamoa, but his characters come across as too arrogant and smug for my liking. But, aside from a bit too much of the “Oh yeah”s and the “My man”s and the “Yeah-ya”s – which are nails on chalkboard to most non-Americans – he was actually okay. Not more than okay, but okay. I’ve read reviews that refer to him as the ‘bad boy’, which is just ridiculous. There’s nothing bad boy-ish about him other than his initial refusal to help. That’s it. He doesn’t hesitate for a second once he’s onboard. Doesn’t second guess anyone, doesn’t take issue with Diana taking charge and giving orders (one order), nothing. He has a teeny tiny spat with Cyborg which is over in an instant and feels no more serious than the rest of his banter.

What I don’t understand, though, is why he helps in the first place. Steppenwolf attacks Queen Mera, and Aquaman turns up to get beaten too. Then Mera – queen, remember – tells him that his then-queen mother gave him up to protect him (which he seems to immediately accept and change his previously-negative opinion of said mother), and that it would have been the mother’s duty (as queen) to go after Steppenwolf, but now it is Aquaman’s. W…why? Why is the queen’s duty not the queen’s duty now that the queen is a different queen? At least the Amazon queen actually makes some effort herself (and is actually acted properly too). It’s made to sound as though this is the first time Aquaman has even turned up in Atlantis, too, which makes it all even weirder.

Cyborg

I’ve heard it said that this is the weakest character, but I don’t agree. I don’t think he is given any less screen time than other characters, and best of all, his self-pity doesn’t last long and isn’t overwhelmingly irritating like certain other Batman/Superman films I could mention. He’s well acted, badly-CGI’d, and plays a crucial role in the story – but not so crucial that you feel he should have had a bigger part to play.

But seriously, why CGI the entire cyborg half of his face? It’s unnecessary and awful.

When it came to humour, as I’ve already said, Flash failed to amuse most of the time, but even that wasn’t totally horrendous as Age of Ultron taught me to expect from Whedon. The worst of it was the bit we already saw, with him getting excited about the Bat signal. Otherwise it was his general awkward, immature nature that was supposed to amuse. There were, I think, two parts that actually made me laugh – one of which is an older woman on the news, which has nothing to do with anything.

Danny Elfman – I’m assuming at Whedon’s behest, or at least permission – brought back the Batman and Superman themes (the proper ones), which worked quite well for Batman, despite him not being a Batman worthy of that theme. For Superman, I can only assume the part where it was used properly was cut. The only time we hear it is a bizzaro version when he’s not himself and is fighting the team. There is a recognisable sound when he punches Steppenwolf, which might be at least a bit of the theme, but it was barely audible underneath the noise of Steppenwolf hitting the ground. Perhaps just as well, since he was even less deserving of it than Batman.

‘Flat’ is probably the best word to describe it. Nothing ever felt remotely dangerous or dramatic, the only time the characters had a hint of emotional interaction with each other was when Bruce annoys Diana and she shoves him. Even that was over in an instant and they were apologising to each other minutes later. There’s no coming together, no clumsiness of people not used to working as a team and not used to trusting others, no…anything much. I’m not even totally sure why it would have been so terrible if Steppenwolf got all three motherboxes. I’m sure it was explained… It’s full of missed opportunities, rushes into things too fast, leaves no time for meaningful character development. It’s more like a pitch for a full film: ‘These are just some of the things you’ll see if you let us make a full Justice League movie’.

So, perhaps the main reason I actually ended up enjoying my two hours was because it was not as terrible as Dawn of Justice. I can’t explain why else I left the cinema not feeling as though I wasted two hours. I want the extended cut (BvS was less terrible in the extended cut), but whose do I want? Snyder’s? Not really. Whedon’s? Not really. I just want a longer, fuller version. But for now, I’m just surprised that I actually want to see it again.

The small bits of Star Wars: The Last Jedi artwork that we’ve seen have got people talking again – as though anyone needed an excuse to talk about Star Wars. Who is/are the last Jedi? Who are Rey’s parents? What is the connection between her and Kylo Ren? Why the hell did R2 magically wake up for no reason at all?

The most popular theory seems to be that Rey is Luke Skywalker’s daughter. I’m in two minds about whether I like the idea of the galaxy revolving around the Skywalker family, but if she is to be a Skywalker, I’d rather it was maternal. In the no-longer-canon Expanded Universe, Han and Leia have twins (and a third child, but who cares about him?): Jaina and Jacen Solo.

Jacen turns to the dark side, while Jaina remains in the light, so Kylo and Rey taking an approximation of these roles would be a decent nod to this. Plus, Jacen kills Luke’s wife, which would add to the justification of Luke running off to sulk in the films.

The downside to this is that there’s little likelihood that Han wouldn’t know that Rey is his daughter. Sure, they could have been split up like Luke and Leia, but there would have been no reason to do that, or to keep her secret from Han. Plus she was around six-ish when she was dumped on Jakku – though this is probably about the right age to hide her to keep her safe from Kylo and Snoke.

Failing this, I’d quite like her to be Obi-Wan Kenobi’s granddaughter. His relationship with Satine in The Clone Wars is canon, so it’s a vague possibility. The downside to this is it still leaves room for the absurd Rey/Kylo romance people seem so desperate for.

As for The Last Jedi, we seem to have confirmation that it is meant as a plural. It’s possible that the foreign language versions were simply translated as plural but not actually told that it was, so I’m not taking it as a fact. But it seems likely. Even if Luke is the last at the beginning of the film, if he trains Rey to be a Jedi, there would be two of them by the end. But, given that Snoke is supposedly an ancient being, is it plausible that he was at some point a Jedi? Could The Last Jedi refer to Luke and Snoke? (No, I do not in any way count Leia as a contender.)

And who’s to say Rey will become a Jedi anyway? Perhaps the old ideas of Jedi and Sith are over, at least for a time. It would be interesting to see her become a balance of light and dark, rather than the extreme of either. This is a concept used in the Dawn of the Jedi graphic novel, and it would be interesting to explore beyond just the realms of Jedi = light side and Sith = dark side.

What do you think about these questions? Who is Rey? Who is Snoke? And seriously, were they that lazy at writing that R2 has no actual reason for waking up?! Will Benicio Del Toro be Boba Fett’s son?

Like this:

For me, when a female-led action movie is done well, there is something a little extra special about it. Perhaps it’s because they are comparatively rarer for the time being. Let’s put aside the obvious Star Wars Episode VIII and Rogue One, the brainlessly whitewashed Ghost in the Shell, and some others. There are three main, female-led potential blockbusters that I’m very much looking forward to.

These three not only have the potential to be brilliant movies, but also to show the morons- powers-that-be that there is just as much a market for female-led movies as there is for male-led ones. That market is, of course, people who like good movies! These idiots powers-that-be seem to be about the only ones that don’t realise that it doesn’t matter who leads a movie – what matters is that it’s entertaining, exciting, thrilling, funny, sad, GOOD.

But that’s not the point. The point is, these are those three movies.

Wonder Woman

Gal Gadot seemed like an odd choice to play Wonder Woman at first. While the likes of Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck were busy growing to twice their normal size at the gym so they could look the part, a spindly model only really known on screen for her part in a Fast & Furious movie was cast as the third of the Trinity. But out marched Batman v Superman, and it was terrible. But Gadot’s Wonder Woman was, for the brief appearances she made, one of the best things about it.

Granted, how good she was will have been exaggerated a little by how terrible the eponymous leads were. She didn’t whinge and whine and boo hoo her way through her cameo scenes; she was there for a reason and she got on with it. She was, as far as anyone can be in such a short time, Wonder Woman. (While the leads failed utterly to be Superman and Batman, but that’s beside the point).

Sadly, Zack Snyder still has his grubby hands on June 2017’s Wonder Woman solo outing, with IMDb listing him under ‘story by’. But he isn’t directing (that’s Patty Jenkins) and he didn’t write the screenplay, so there’s hope yet. The trailers keep looking better and better, and there’s a slightly Marvel flavour to them, which isn’t a bad thing after an okay Man of Steel followed by two woeful outings from the DCMU.

I’ve always considered Wonder Woman to be Superman’s equal. While he has more raw power, her being a magically-created demigod and warrior balances the scales. When Superman goes bad, who do you call? Wonder Woman (also Batman, obviously). So far, it’s looking as though Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman is going to be that equal, with the actress easily embodying Power, Grace, and Wisdom.

Captain Marvel

I don’t actually know all that much about Captain Marvel, being neither a comic reader nor a Marvel fan outside of the screen, but I look forward to her introduction to the MCU more than most of the other Marvel movies coming up.

So far, all we know about the movie is that it is scheduled for release in March 2019, is being written by Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve, and will star Oscar winner Brie Larson (who I have only now realised was Abed’s girlfriend in Community!).

Captain Marvel is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe, and according to the Marvel Studios’ president, Kevin Feige, the MCU’s version of her will not only be more powerful than the rest of the heroes ‘by far’, but will also be more powerful than fans are used to seeing her. So, she’s taking the Hulk’s heavyweight belt and then some.

In the comics, as the character progressed through the usual iterations, she gained the ability to tap the power of a white hole, allowing her to manipulate gravity, heat, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Though she lost this connection, Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel’s base powers include flight at around Mach 6 (light speed with the white hole connection), the ability to survive in space, superhuman strength and durability, a limited precognition, and the ability to blast energy from her fingertips. She can also absorb energy to augment her power to the point of unleashing a nuclear warhead level energy blast, and can throw a 92-tonne punch.

In short, even if these are the highest levels her power reaches in the film, she’s going to be insanely powerful. So with a strong choice of actress, good source material, and Marvel’s mostly solid track record, I don’t need a trailer to know that I want to see this, now!

As a side note, I’m interested in seeing how she’s used going forward. Up till now, Marvel has been mostly trying to keep a balance between the heroes’ power, with them coming out of every scrape pretty much equal (even if it doesn’t always make much sense): Captain America v Iron Man; Thor v Captain America; Thor v Iron Man; Iron Man v Hulk; Thor v Hulk, etc. So it will be interesting to see how Captain Marvel is incorporated in later films, which she will be given that she’s set to become one of the most important characters in the MCU. In the comics, she has had affiliations with pretty much everyone from SHIELD and the Avengers, to the X-Men, to the Guardians of the Galaxy, so we could be seeing a lot of her.

Tomb Raider

Again, we know very little about 2018’s Tomb Raider, except that it will star Alicia Vikander and will be based to some degree on 2013’s Tomb Raider game reboot and sequel. This is what IMDb currently says about it, if it means anything:

Lara Croft sets out on her first expedition to finish her father’s archaeological research and uncover ancient secrets in order to clear his disgraced name. Tragedy hits when her adventure turns into a fight for survival.

This sounds made up to me, but it would make sense. While the 2013 Tomb Raider game was about Lara Croft taking part in an expedition that goes wrong, its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider (yes, stupid name), was a more personal story about Lara trying to complete her father’s work and clear his disgraced name.

Written by Rhianna Pratchett, the reboots were far more story driven, and introduced a more human Lara Croft. Initially, she doesn’t believe in the more supernatural elements that gamers were used to her battling, she was barely out of college, and certainly didn’t somersault all over the place firing two guns at once. She was a young woman way out of her depth, concerned only with trying to rescue her friends, and has to adapt radically to be a surviver.

While Angelina Jolie was a good choice for the big screen’s somewhat entertaining first attempt at the character, it’s easy to imagine Alicia Vikander (another Oscar winner) bringing the young, innocent, and vulnerable Lara Croft through the tragedies, tortures, and trials that will forge the Tomb Raider.

So these are, aside from Rey and Luke, the characters and movies I’m most looking forward to seeing in the next few years. If they’re done right (and I think at least Captain Marvel and Tomb Raider will be), they could be brilliant.

What movies, female led or not, are you looking forward to most before 2020?